Education: Education Reform

The race for the North Dakota Senate has mostly been dominated by health care, energy, and campaign finance, but what about education? All four of the Senate candidates share a desire to reform education not only in their home state of South Dakota, but on a federal level. While three of the candidates suggested reworking the system that is already in place, Republican Mike Rounds expressed a desire to repeal the federal Department of Education. He argued that a lot of frustration on the state level stems from having to adhere to “federal bureaucratic demands” and local school boards are capable of making decisions on education. Instead of a federal Department of Education, Rounds proposed that the federal government would support education through “block grants” of money that states could spend on education however they saw fit. None of the other candidates agreed on eliminating the Department of Education, but recommended changes from within.